The Berrybender Narratives

by Larry McMurtry

  At night Tasmin had taken to sitting up late with the mountain men. Reticent at first in her presence, they soon relaxed and went on gossiping and cussing into the small hours. Jim was at first uneasy about Tasmin’s penchant for late hours but he didn’t attempt to restrict her. Usually, at night, he was the one to keep Monty, spreading their blankets as far as possible from the sounds of carousing.

  Persuading Jim to keep Monty afforded Tasmin her only chance for a little time alone with Pomp—the latter would usually be standing guard just out of camp. Tasmin could sometimes manage a word with him while on her way to join her husband and her child. Pomp was usually cool on these occasions, so cool that Tasmin felt like pounding him with her fists in frustration. His responses were more brotherly than not, a thing that infuriated Tasmin—yet she refused to give up. She loved the man and wanted him. What was wrong? Sometimes, leaving Pomp, she didn’t make it back to Jim and Monty. She would sit alone on the prairie all night, crying, confused, tormented. Why couldn’t she give up? Pomp didn’t want what she wanted—probably he never would. All the wanting was hers. It left her feeling hopeless.

  One morning Mary Berrybender, who was often out early seeking specimens for Piet’s various collections, found Tasmin sitting listlessly in the grass, not crying, merely looking into space.

  “Why, Tassie, Monty is squalling for the teat,” Mary said. “Why are you sitting way out here?”

  Tasmin lacked the energy for any sort of quarrel with her sister, a girl in many ways so perceptive.

  “You’re wanting Pomp, I suppose,” Mary told her. “Buffum and I and Vicky all think so.”

  Tasmin shrugged.

  “You’re a highly professional trio, when it comes to matters of the heart, I’m sure,” she said. “If you have all concluded that I’m wanting Pomp, then I suppose I am—it hardly means I’ll get him.”

  Monty’s hungry cry, faintly heard, increased her dull irritability. She had once had a fine, springing bosom, and yet now Monty had hung on it for months, with another child soon to take his place at the same milky fountain. Was that the problem? Would Pomp have wanted her if she was a girl yet, with a fine, springing bosom, instead of the mother she had become, whose nipples sometimes dripped with milk?

  Somehow she didn’t suppose it would matter much to Pomp. Such thoughts were idle. Her husband didn’t find her lacking in appeal. Why was she not content with Jim Snow’s lively virility? Why had she been obliged to seek another? And why had it to be Pomp, a man too sensitive for his own good?

  “Poor Tassie,” Mary said. “I suppose it’s always hard for great beauties to be happy.”

  “Great beauty indeed! Don’t flatter me,” Tasmin said. “I was rather beautiful once, but America has quite scraped that away. Now I’m just a peeling, scratched-up wife and mother. We’re all scratched up things. Does no good to dwell on what a beauty I was.”

  “You’re young, though,” Mary reminded her. “What’s lacking is our gentle English climate. You’d soon be beautiful again if we were in a place that wasn’t so dry.”

  “We’ve another day’s trudging to do—why yap about beauty?” Tasmin asked.

  “Because you seem sad,” Mary said. “I do believe that Buffum and I are luckier. She’s very happy with High Shoulders, and I’m most companionable with my Piet.”

  “Then my discontent must be my fault,” Tasmin said. “My Jimmy’s an excellent man—he ought to be enough. What’s wrong with me?”

  “It’s that you don’t have an accepting nature, Tassie,” Mary replied. “I don’t believe you accept anybody. Even I put up with my Piet’s trifling limitations.”

  At this Tasmin put her face in her hands.

  “What I mean to say—it’s that you want more than there is,” Mary went on. “You want more than there is.”

  “That’s right,” Tasmin admitted. “I don’t have an accepting nature, and I do want more than there is. How am I to go about correcting these awkward faults?”

  “How could I recommend?” Mary said, looking puzzled. “You’re my big sister. Buffum and I look to you as to a paragon.”

  “Rather a muddled paragon, this morning,” Tasmin told her. “I used to believe that I was really a de Bury, you know. Mama and Lord de Bury were said to have enjoyed a petite liaison before Papa came along. It’s hard to imagine Mama doing much copulating without a brat resulting. I used to suppose I was that brat.”

  “Why shouldn’t you suppose it? Perhaps you’re right.”

  “I no longer think so—I’m too much like Papa,” Tasmin said. “He also lacks an accepting nature, and I’m sure you would agree that he wants too much. If he didn’t want too much we wouldn’t be here.”

  “He’s rather had his comeuppance, though,” Mary said. “Vicky’s got the upper hand now, physically. Papa spends his day cowering, hoping she won’t bloody his nose.”

  “He’s greatly altered by a lack of claret,” Tasmin pointed out. “Wait till we get someplace where there’s liquor—he’ll soon be the one doing the bloodying again. Vicky had better enjoy her dominance while she can.”

  “What will the Sin Killer do if he catches you with Pomp? The thought worries us extremely,” Mary said.

  “Oh, stop worrying,” Tasmin told her. “Pomp’s not interested—he’s too pure for me. I am going to try to learn not to assault him, if I can.”

  “But if you’re in love with him, how can you stop?” Mary wanted to know. “It’s as if I told Piet I wouldn’t whip him with brambles anymore. He would be heartbroken and so would I.”

  Tasmin saw Little Onion approaching with Monty, who had stopped squalling in expectation of his breakfast.

  “Piet’s requirements may actually be rather simple when compared to the needs—whatever they are—of the elusive Monsieur Pomp. What does one do with a celibate? I confess I just don’t know.”

  “Piet believes celibacy to be contrary to nature,” Mary said. “He plans to make me not a virgin very soon.

  “Only he hopes to wait until we’re in a more comfortable setting before getting on with penetration,” she added.

  “Well, that’s considerate of him,” Tasmin said. “In the end you may be luckier than any of us, Mary.”

  Little Onion sat Monty down—he began to toddle at his most rapid pace toward his mother, who soon enveloped him in her arms. Here’s a person who wants me, Tasmin thought. No doubt about that.

  “I wonder if Piet and I will have many brats,” Mary mused. “They seem to require such a lot of raising—I really wish Nanny Craigie would have come.”

  Tasmin’s bad mood began to lift—sometimes Monty did amuse her. It was funny to watch such a tiny person making a mad dash over the dewy grass.

  Just then she saw Jim Snow, riding off with Tom Fitzpatrick on an early morning hunt. At the sight her spirits lifted even higher. Jim looked so dashing, there on horseback—maybe he’d get them all to Santa Fe, after all.

  40

  Even the slightest delay had always irked him.

  “I AM the one who has been chosen to keep the stories,” Greasy Lake reminded the Partezon, who of course knew it as well as he did. But the Partezon was on his way to seek his death place and would not sit still for any long-winded talk. Already the Partezon looked annoyed. Even the slightest delay had always irked him. The Partezon had lived many seasons, and made many people die, but now he was riding into the sacred Black Hills to die—it was important, Greasy Lake felt, that a few things be made clear to the man before he took his journey to the Sky House.

  “I am the one who has been trusted with the stories,” he said, once again. “That was decided by grandfathers long ago. You know it yourself. Your own mother brought you to me when you were born. Now my horse has died and I can’t get around. You are just going to climb up into those hills and die. You have a fine horse. If you take it way up there, it will just get eaten by a cougar or a bear, which is a waste.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Fool’s Bull for his horse?
” the Partezon countered. “That roan of his is a decent horse. But you let Fool’s Bull ride off, and now you want my horse. I could find my death place a lot quicker if I didn’t have to deal with people like you and Fool’s Bull.”

  “But I am not a warrior, like Fool’s Bull—I’m a prophet,” Greasy Lake reminded the Partezon. “You have a fine white horse, and I need the best horse I can get. You are part of the great story I have to protect— give me your horse and I promise to make him last thirty years.”

  “My horse may last thirty years but you won’t,” the Partezon said. “Don’t bother me with talk about grandfathers. Pretty soon the whites are going to kill all the People, including you. What about your stories then?”

  “Now you’re being selfish,” Greasy Lake said—he was becoming exasperated. “The whites aren’t going to kill all the People—and the stories are safe. If the whites knew I was a prophet they would have killed me already, but the whites can’t tell a prophet from a fool. I will see that the stories are correctly passed on, but I could do a better job if I had a good horse to carry me around.”

  “You don’t weigh much—you should get a young horse,” the Partezon told him.

  “I’m not heavy—it’s the stories that are heavy,” Greasy Lake said. “The stories finally broke my old horse down. I carry all the stories—as many as ducks on the Platte. Soon I will be carrying your story too.”

  For two turnings of the seasons the Partezon had been passing blood, but lately he had begun to pass more blood, and blood of a vivid red. He told no one—he didn’t want the People to know that he was dying—but he himself was convinced of it, which is why he had no fear of the pox that had destroyed the Mandans and the Rees. He had no fear that Fool’s Bull would get sick, either, because Fool’s Bull was the luckiest man among the Sioux. Fool’s Bull had ridden through battle after battle without a scratch. Bullets could not seem to hit him, nor arrows, either. The worst injury of Fool’s Bull’s life was a centipede bite which caused one of his fingers to turn black.

  The Partezon didn’t like prophets, particularly, but he knew that old Greasy Lake must be a good prophet because he had been able to intercept him as he journeyed to his death place. After their trip to the Mandans, the Partezon had sent Fool’s Bull back to the tribe, with instructions to keep them well away from the river. Fool’s Bull had been reluctant to go, but the Partezon had insisted, so he went. He was scarcely even out of sight when Greasy Lake turned up, standing by his dead horse. Of course, he at once started talking about the big responsibility he had, as the keeper of stories.

  The Partezon had serious business to arrange—his death—and he did not want to waste much time at the foot of the sacred mountains, talking to a puffed-up old prophet.

  Abruptly, he dismounted.

  ’All right—take the horse—load it down with your stories, if you want to,” he said. “But let me alone.”

  But the Partezon had walked only a few yards before Greasy Lake interrupted him again. He pointed at a mountain that stood alone, well to the north of the mass of hills—that, he indicated, was where the Partezon should look for his death place.

  “It’s the hill where the rocks face north,” Greasy Lake said. “That’s the one where the eagles nest.”

  Somewhat to the Partezon’s surprise, it turned out to be good advice. It took the Partezon, who was becoming very weak, almost a full day to make his way to the rocky summit where the eagles circled. There were nine of them at least, he saw. The presence of the eagles convinced him that he had done the right thing when he gave Greasy Lake the horse. There they were, the great soaring eagles, flying far more gracefully than the white men had flown in their clumsy machine.

  Climbing carefully, applying his disciplined attention for the last time, the Partezon managed to reach the top of a bare rock spur. He thought he would be safe there—it was unlikely that a bear would try to climb the rock spur just to eat an old man like himself. Instead, the great eagles would eat him—in time he would be part of their fine, sweeping flight. At sunset the Partezon lay flat on the rock. He was very weak, but at least he didn’t have to think anymore—a great relief. He looked a last time far away, to the plain where the People lived. In the night, without him noticing, his breath became one with the wind.

  41

  Both brothers were short. . .

  “CHARLIE and Willy, they’re going to fight!” Josefina announced. “Every single day since we’ve been here they fight.”

  Maria Jaramillo, engaged to be married to Charles Bent, peeked off the parapet where she and her sister had climbed. The man she was to marry, Charlie Bent, stood nose to nose with his brother Willy. Both brothers were short, only a little taller than Josefina, who was not quite five feet tall. No doubt Charlie had given Willy an order Willy didn’t like. Willy’s habit of objecting to Charlie’s orders was cause of many fistfights between the brothers—most of the fights, fortunately, were brief.

  Maria and Josefina had climbed up to the parapet of the huge adobe edifice the brothers were building with their partner St. Vrain—a building part fort, part trading post, and part caravanserai—in order to smoke their little cigallos, cigars wrapped in corn husks, a popular vice with girls of the better class. On the parapet they would be less likely to be caught in this mildly illicit activity by their aunt and chaperone, Dona Esmeralda, an aging beauty who had spent virtually her whole life in the governor’s palace, drifting serenely from one intrigue to another. Dona Esmeralda smoked cigallos herself but forbade them to her nieces.

  “There they go! With their fists!” Josefina said. Maria looked down and saw that, sure enough, Charlie and Willy were raining punches upon one another, to very little effect. The brothers’ fistfights, occurring, as they did, on an almost daily basis, aroused no interest at all in the various people at work in the huge courtyard. Ceran St. Vrain, just back from a trip to their warehouses in Saint Louis, was serenely inventorying goods as they were unloaded from the big wagons. Across the way, at the unbuilt gap in the south wall, the small men who worked with adobe went on shaping their mud bricks and setting them in place. A herd of sheep had just passed out of the wide gates, accompanied by two sheepherders and a woolly black dog.

  “The fight’s over—nobody won,” Josefina remarked. Charlie and Willy now seemed to be in amiable discussion.

  “What if he beats you up, Maria?” Josefina asked.

  Maria directed no more than a casual glance toward her fiance, Charles Bent. She didn’t fear Charlie Bent—he’d be lucky if she didn’t beat him up. Even in Santa Fe, where wellborn seftoritas were trained to be properly haughty, Maria stood out in her ability to frighten men. Many brave soldiers, some of them even captains, trembled when they asked her to dance. Charles Bent was neither the richest nor the best looking of her suitors, but he had proved the most persistent. When Charles Bent first stumbled into Santa Fe, having hauled his first load of goods across the prairie, a dance had been in progress. Maria had hardly noticed the small, dusty figure watching her from the edge of the crowd. Many elegant young Mexican officers were there, dressed impeccably, their mustaches trimmed and waxed—and yet the short americano had hardly waited five minutes before he asked Maria to dance. Everyone was so startled by this temerity that the governor, who happened to be Maria’s uncle, was about to have the young fool arrested—but Maria waved him off and actually danced with the newcomer. After all, she could dance with the young officers anytime. To her embarrassment Charlie proved to be a terrible dancer—he knew nothing of quadrilles and could only hop about; to make matters worse, he was much shorter than Maria. In her view men who couldn’t dance should at least be tall.

  After that beginning Maria refused Charles Bent many times, curling her lip and flashing him looks of scorn. Charles Bent refused to be discouraged—he made her presents of fine silks and even velvet, carefully protected on their long trip across the plains.

  Soon her uncle the governor, seeing that there was money to be
made from this persistent young americano, began to grant the young man and his partner certain privileges, even allowing the construction of the big post on the Arkansas.

  Dona Esmeralda opposed these favors; she opposed, even more strenuously, any sort of match between Maria and the American. She even went so far as to hint to the girls that there were vital pleasures that a man of such small stature would be unlikely to provide. Maria was not quite sure what her aunt was hinting at, but it didn’t matter, since she had no intention of marrying Charles Bent. She said no to him a hundred times; but then, one day she found herself in the mood to leave Santa Fe and go out into the world. Instead of saying no she said yes, which is why she and Josefina were on the parapet of the fort, smoking their cigallos when they thought no one was looking. Dona Esmeralda was at the moment enjoying a flirtation with a stout young muleteer—at such times she was apt to neglect her duties as a duenna.

  “I hope he won’t beat you too much,” Josefina said.

  “If he has any mettle he’ll beat me,” Maria said. ‘Auntie says that a man who lacks the mettle to beat a woman is not a man worth keeping.” Dona Esmeralda was always warning the girls about the fact that men’s mettle varied greatly. Some men didn’t have much— those men were to be avoided.

  � stallion is not supposed to be tame when he mounts the mare,” she said to her nieces, with a wink.

  The well-bred Jaramillo girls had never been allowed to observe a stallion mounting a mare, but it was advice to ponder. Both were virgins; the practices that belonged to adulthood had not yet been theirs, but they could speculate, they could imagine, they could dream. Where passion was concerned, Maria felt quite confident of her powers. If she chose to stir a man up until he struck her, she felt sure she could accomplish that without difficulty. The bare mechanics of copulation had been explained to her by a servant girl. Though it sounded a little disgusting, it occurred to her that that must be what Dofta Esmeralda was up to, with her cadets and muleteers.